Keith is a chain hotel owner. Keith never liked you. Yet, he married you, he never joined you in bed and he had quiet dinners with you in silence. He was cold, rude, and emotionless. A year after his marriage to you his rival business people kidnapped you in order to get even with him because he was always winning the awards and the fame. They chained you up and beat you until you were unconscious. Then they kept you in an underground place outside the city where they mercilessly beat you every day and tortured you. Keith's men tried to find you everywhere. Even the police were involved without any success as there was no trace of you left and no leads. Two years pass and Keith gets married to Amelia. His family man image is good for the hotel business. But a year after his second marriage you return back. You were released by your kidnappers.

Cedarville pressed against you like a bruise you never let heal. The house breathed dust and memory when you opened the door, the air thick with what you had not said. Three years ago Erl arrived with blueprints and dust on his hands. He stayed too long. Talked too easily. When Drustan came home early and saw Erl holding your hand it shattered something fragile. You were not unfaithful but you were wounded by the accusation you left with pride burning hotter than reason. You told yourself it was dignity. It was fear. Drustan had trusted his eyes more than your voice and you had trusted your anger more than your marriage. The divorce papers felt lighter than the regret that followed. You stripped sheets from furniture and uncovered the life you abandoned. Photos slid from drawers into your hands. Drustan laughing in the kitchen. Your bare feet on the porch in summer. Proof that love had once been ordinary and real. You cried until the rooms echoed. That evening you saw him crossing the market square. Older. Broader. Still devastating. Your heart did not ask permission before remembering. Love returned like a sickness and a cure at once. Drustan had told your lawyer weeks ago that he wanted to sell his share. He wanted nothing tied to the house anymore. You told yourself you were here for business but your chest knew better. The next morning you left the message. Calm. Decisive. A lie built from longing. You would buy his share. You would stay. Drustan listened again and again. Each replay tightened something in his chest. Anger flared fist. He hated that you came yourself instead of hiding behind lawyers. Cedarville was his ground, his past, his escape. He had rebuilt a life with Gina. A wedding planned. A future chosen. Anger tangled with memories. He told himself he was finished with you. Yet, here you were saying you cane to stay. Your voice pulled at the fault lines he never sealed. He hated that part of himself most of all.

Dermott stretches out on the rug in your living room as if the place has always belonged to him. His phone rests above his chest, casting pale light across his face. His glasses have slid slightly off center. This is how he looks when nothing is demanded of him. A quiet sound escapes him when he scrolls. He opens a voice message, lowers the volume, listens again. Elma’s laughter slips through the speaker, careless and distant. He sets the phone down but the expression stays. Soft. Unguarded. He explains her absence without being asked. She is exhausted, works too much. He tells you that tomorrow he will bake her lime pie from the recipe he never shares. The one you asked for, months ago. The one he never had time to make for you because the bakery always came first. Dermott is constancy in human form. He remembers what matters, carries other people’s weight without complaint. He never asks to be seen for it & none of it belongs to you. Elma receives all of it. She gives him pieces of herself in return. Brief conversations. Casual warmth. Moments that end before they begin. He fills the gaps with faith & calls it love. He does not question the imbalance & does not resent it. With you, he is different. You are familiarity. Shelter. The place he rests when the world presses too hard. He depends on you & never wonders why. Romance never enters his thinking. Friendship never crosses that line. Your mother, Erina watches you endure it quietly & decides silence is no longer kindness. She tells him everything. He does not take it well. He confronts you, calm & resolute & you decide to leave. 6 months pass in Texas. Back home, his life with Elma begins to falter. Small fractures appear. Missed connections. Uneven ground. He still does not let go. Some loyalties do not break. They wear down. And if he fails, it will not be sudden. It will be slow. And it will hurt.

You woke to the smell of disinfectant and the weight of months pressing down on your lungs. The nurse said coma as if it were a weather report. The police arrived before your pulse felt like yours again. They asked for your husband. They said his name with care. Lugh. You told them you could not remember. That you argued over something stupid. That you stormed out. That the night shattered too fast to hold. You begged them to let him go. They heard panic and called it loyalty. Your marriage had been a decision made at speed. Heat without knowledge. Three years later the house felt hollow. He left before dawn and returned after dark. Calls rang into silence. When he did answer his voice was already gone. Love had thinned until it was a habit, then not even that. They kept him anyway. Prime suspect. The word echoed. You learned how time sounds when it drips. You learned how to sleep while awake, how to forgive without relief. A year later the driver confessed to the impact but not the intent. He said Lugh paid him. He said your body was a receipt. The courtroom watched you like a wound deciding whether to bleed. He was convicted. At Lugh's trial, a month later, when the prosecutor called you, memory rose on command. You invented clarity. You described headlights and rain and fear that belonged to everyone. You said the driver lied, that Lugh loved you. Pressure pressed. You did not bend. They released your husband. He stood thinner, eyes sharp with something like gratitude. You did not touch. At night you remembered the argument. The door. The way you ran because running felt cleaner than staying. Lugh had said that he never loved you, that he met someone else. He said the word 'divorce' crushing your heart. What you did not remember is the car, the accident itself. But you knew that you would do everything to win his heart.

Babe was a name that made people step back and swallow hard, except Leandro. Two years ago, he had been the fiercest force in the Northsides. When the group needed a new leader, they passed him over. Leandro took the crown, smiling like betrayal was a work of art. Babe stayed. Loyalty ran too deep to abandon the city he’d fought for. Leandro sensed it and feared it. He shoved him out. Since then, the city trembled at Leandro’s shadow, every corner whispered his name, every alley waited for his teeth. You had been at Evan’s bakery for a year. Ordinary life. Bills, ovens, flour-dusted hands. Taking care of your sister, Elaine and her kids since her divorce. No dreams, no ambitions. Just survival and quiet vigilance. Then the threats came. Leandro’s men, slick and cruel, asking for more money. Evan refused. The bakery faltered. Customers disappeared. The smell of bread became tension and fear. The door slammed open. Men poured in. Brush knuckles on fists, eyes like black ice. You were carrying a sack of flour when a gunshot tore through the store. Panic hit like fire. You hurled the flour into their faces, blinding and choking them, and grabbed Evan. You ran, heart hammering, the world breaking around you, until you lost each other and you crashed into someone. Babe. Flour coated his silky shirt, lipstick mark smeared across his chest, alive and lethal. He saw you instantly. Fear flickered in your eyes, and he recognized it, understood it. He slammed you against the wall, pressed his body to yours to protect you, kissed you, urgently without hesitation. The Northsides passed by without seeing, oblivious. And in that instant, the city shifted. You weren’t just caught in the storm anymore. You were part of it. Babe’s plan had found its spark. You became the means that would tear the group apart. That kiss, that shared breath everything was danger, everything was fire, and nothing would ever be ordinary again.

The reunion smelled of perfume & expensive alcohol, of people who had learned how to wear success like armor. Five years had passed since college & everyone looked carefully assembled. Rings on fingers. Confident smiles. Lives sealed shut. You stood among them with an empty glass & a phone that had gone cold in your hand. Aaron was supposed to be there with you. Always Aaron. In college he had been the quiet constant, the man who watched instead of performed, history books stacked beside your lab notes, nights spent talking until dawn without touching. You never named what it was. You let it live in silence. He had vanished days before the reunion. No replies. No excuses. You told yourself he was anxious, that crowds made him fold inward. Still you kept checking the door, your chest tight with something close to dread. Near midnight the room stirred. Aaron walked in late, immaculate, composed, wearing a suit that made him look like someone who had made peace with his choices. His hand was wrapped around a woman’s waist. Erina Orlando. She was beautiful in a deliberate way, calm, polished, untouchable & a famous doctor despite the young of her age. He smiled as if nothing had been broken. “This is Erina,” he said. “My future wife.” Applause erupted. Congratulations spilled freely. You felt your vision narrow, your breath stutter. The room tilted. You sat for a moment only because your body failed you, then you stood & left without a word. You went to his grandmother that same night. Lorna listened while you unraveled. She told you the truth with tired honesty. Aaron was bound by debt, by money that had once saved his family from ruin. Love had never entered the equation, but Aaron was loyal to his family & never left a debt to go unpaid. She saw your grief immediately. You had loved him in a way that never demanded anything. And the worst cruelty was this. Aaron never knew and couldn't have guessed, because to him you were his good friend.

(© AnnaSenzai)Deep beneath a hillside that tourists mistook for ruin, the earth kept a secret it could not forget. Stone corridors descended into warmth, as if daylight itself had been buried & was still breathing. The walls were carved with vows older than language, commands pressed into marble by hands that believed eternity could be ruled. Every symbol hummed, not loudly but with the patience of something that never slept. At the center waited a presence that had learned stillness as a wound. Hyperion no longer counted years. He counted pressure. The weight of silence. The constant reminder that his light was no longer his own. Zeus had been clever. No chains. No abyss. Only a rule. Serve the bearer. Rise when commanded. Burn without choice. The prison was elegant. That was its cruelty. You entered without reverence, notebook in hand, dust on your boots, thinking only of dates & myths. The air shifted the moment your shadow crossed the threshold. The temple knew you before you knew it. Stones groaned softly, as if adjusting their grip on something restless. When you fell near the broken column, the sound echoed too deeply, as though the ground recognized the accident as permission. Your tool struck metal. Gold, warm, alive. The necklace answered your touch with a pulse that ran up your arm & settled behind your eyes. Somewhere far below thought became heat. Light condensed. Not exploding, but assembling. Hyperion took shape as the laws allowed him to, tall & radiant, his glow muted by unseen restraint. The chains were not visible at first. They lived in the air between you. When you lifted the necklace & fastened it, the temple exhaled. He looked at you then. Not with fury. With calculation. Power shifted its allegiance with a soundless click. His breath was steady when he spoke, though the room leaned toward him, drawn by habit. “You have changed the order of the sky,” Hyperion said quietly. “Now tell me why I should not teach you what that costs.”

The storm had erased the road, the trees, the sky itself. White pressed against every window as if the world wanted inside. For days you had lived in that colorless silence, counting the hours since Cormac stopped answering, rehearsing hope until it tasted like ash. The police spoke gently and did nothing. Weather has its own laws. At dusk the wind screamed louder and you went to the window again, out of habit, out of hunger. A shape moved where nothing should move. A man fought his way through snow that climbed his legs like hands. Panic split open your chest and you reached for your coat, your boots, the shovel. The door flew wide and the storm rushed you. Cormac stood there. His eyelashes were iced, his eyes hollowed by something worse than cold. In his arms was a bundle wrapped too tightly, too carefully. He stepped past you and set it on the sofa as though placing an offering on an altar. The crying began only then, thin and shocked by warmth. By the fire he held you and spoke words that landed like stones. There was no business trip. There was Marita. There was a year of lies folded neatly behind your back. There was a child born from this infidelity and Marita was sick. He had taken the baby in a moment of fear and mercy that did not include you. You did not scream. You felt something quieter and far more dangerous take shape. Love curdled into memory. Marriage became a fact instead of a promise. You watched the baby breathe and knew that innocence does not absolve betrayal. When the roads cleared you left without warning. You did not run. You prepared. Names, dates, debts, silences. You followed paper trails and old neighbors and truths buried under politeness. Cormac believed the storm had taken you from him, having no clue that you were digging into his and Marita's past. He never imagined you were learning how to make a storm of your own, but soon he would be forced to face this storm.

The winter of 1942 pressed down on the city like a held breath. Snow gathered in the gutters and never melted, as if even the ground had surrendered to the war. In the basement cafe, light trembled from weak bulbs, catching on chipped cups and tired faces. You sat beside your brother and his wife, their reunion too fragile to interrupt, their hands clasped like something that could still be taken. You kept your eyes lowered, a ghost at the table. That was when the room seemed to tilt. He sat alone in the corner, untouched by conversation or warmth, a man carved from restraint. Captain Hardy Walter. His uniform was immaculate, his posture exact, his attention fixed inward as though the world had already disappointed him. He did not smile. He did not look around. Yet everyone noticed him. You felt it then, a tightening under the ribs, the quiet certainty of being seen before you understood how. When his eyes finally lifted, they landed on you with calm precision. Not hunger. Not charm. Assessment. He crossed the room without haste. The proposal came days later, delivered without romance, without kneeling, as if marriage were simply another order issued and obeyed. You said yes because the war had taught everyone how quickly things disappeared. You married within a week. That night he left, whispering futures he never intended to keep. The knock came before dawn weeks later. Occupiers at the door. Boots, papers, cold certainty. Hardy had been arrested. Your wedding date saved him. Your presence, sworn and signed, became truth. Only then did you understand. He had not loved you, but he had trusted you. In war, survival often wears the mask of betrayal. You were not deceived. You were chosen. And that knowledge stayed with you long after the snow melted, after the war ended, after love became something you could no longer mistake for safety.

He lost everything the moment he laughed at you and lost you. He just did not know it yet. Tyr Torsten had been raised on marble floors and expectation. Wealth clung to him like perfume. His days were filled with privilege and noise, his nights with excess. You grew up in the same house but in a different world. While he learned entitlement, you learned patience. Your mother cooked for the Torsten family with quiet pride, and the estate kitchen was where you learned discipline, restraint, and strength. Bragi saw what his grandson did not. After your studies, when you returned to the only home you had ever known, he made a decision rooted in values rather than vanity. He believed character mattered more than aristocratic bloodline. On Tyr’s birthday, before crystal glasses and smiling guests, Bragi announced the engagement. Everyone was shocked.Tyr laughed. Loudly. Cruelly. He turned rejection into spectacle and power into performance. In that moment, something shifted. You left with dignity and never asked to be remembered. Years passed. You built a life shaped by effort rather than inheritance. You studied, created, failed, learned, and succeeded. What began as a modest line of natural cosmetics became a global name. Your products were sought after not because they were expensive, but because they were honest. Simplicity became your signature. Humility became your weapon. Back at the estate, everything rotted. Tyr squandered what was handed to him. Bragi grew frail. The fortune thinned. Doors closed. When Bragi called for help, no one answered. Except your mother, who begged you in silence. You arrived as an assistant with another name, another face, another posture. Glasses, wig, makeup hardened your gaze. Confidence replaced humility. As your car stopped before the estate, Bragi pale in his chair, Tyr beside him, Enya, his mom, tense, while your mother , Erina, lingered near the doorway. No one recognized you. But history did.

The market had learned how to mock hunger. Your stomach ached as you walked between stalls heavy with bread glazed in honey, sugared fruit, pies steaming behind glass. Coins were useless things in your pocket, too few to matter, earned by splitting your hands raw at the mill. War had eaten the town thin. It had eaten you thin too. Still, color survived. Cloth bright as summer birds fluttered from hooks. For a moment you forgot yourself. An apple struck the dust at your feet. Then another followed, rolling lazily downhill as if the earth itself had offered them. You bent, hands shaking, picked them up. You bit one without thinking. Sweetness flooded your mouth. The other you hid in your pocket, already planning how slowly you would eat it later. Hands closed around your arms. Shouts. Accusations. You protested until your throat burned, swearing you had stolen nothing, that the apples had fallen, that hunger was not a crime. The guards did not listen. They never did. Stone swallowed you. Damp walls breathed rot. Your legs faltered but pride held you upright as they dragged you down a corridor where screams had dried into silence. A door opened. You were shoved inside. The cell stank of mold and fear. Mice scattered. Someone else stood there. He pushed away from the wall as if gravity obeyed him only by choice. Tall, broad, scarred, he looked down at you with eyes sharpened by loss. Ragnar Halard. A name spoken in whispers since the battle on the cliffs. Viking against Shetlander. An ambush. A slaughter. He had survived when others had not, and captivity had not broken him. It had only taught him patience. Fire lived in him, contained but dangerous. He spoke little, learned early that words did not stop blades. As you steadied yourself, he shifted his hand. Metal glinted. A ring of keys. Ragnar stepped past you, calm as a held breath, and slid the key into the lock.

Spring always dragged you back into the mountains, into the thin air that burned your lungs and the cabin your father still called home. You no longer lived there, but duty had weight, and so did the traps stacked against the wall. Steel circles, cold and brutal, meant for bears. You hauled them through the trees until your shoulders screamed, each step sinking into old snow and thawing mud. Setting the last one, your finger slipped. Pain flashed bright and sharp. Blood welled. You sucked it away without thinking, more annoyed than afraid, and snapped the jaws into place. The forest went quiet after that, the wrong kind of quiet. You felt him before you saw him. A presence felt at your back, heavy and watching. You turned, heart hammering, and found a man caught where no bear should ever be. Wolf ears crowned his dark hair. His body was powerful, built for running and killing, and iron teeth bit deep into his thigh. Blood stained the snow beneath him. His growl rolled through the trees. “You did this,” he said, not asking. You could not move. Stories crashed through your mind, half remembered warnings and fireside lies. He did not wait for you to answer. With a roar of strength and fury, he tore the trap apart, metal screaming as it bent. He stood, wounded and shaking, eyes burning with something older than anger. “These traps killed half of my pack,” he said. “Slowly.” You ran. He caught you. He dragged you to a den hidden beneath stone and roots, far from any path. A cage waited there, old and scarred, and you were locked inside it. Days blurred. He showed you what traps did to bodies, how suffering lingered long after hope died. Not to break you, but to make you see. The mountains listened. The forest watched. And somewhere between fear and understanding, something irreversible began. He was your punishment but you felt his scent.

You were taken to a hunt because Edgar’s daughter was expected to be brave. Tradition demanded it. Blood, silence, patience. You had never understood it and never wanted to. The forest felt too alive to be turned into a proving ground. The men spread out, boots crunching through frost and leaves. You stayed close to your father, fingers numb around a gun you hated touching. Then the woods changed. Birds scattered. Deer vanished. A deep growl rolled through the trees. Bears. Too many. Too close. Your father shouted orders, then chaos tore the line apart. Shapes crashed through brush. Someone screamed. When you turned back, your father was gone. You ran. Branches lashed your face. Roots caught your boots. You dropped the gun without looking back. A sharp pain tore through your leg, warm and wet, but fear drove you forward. You stumbled, limped, forced yourself on, glancing over your shoulder again and again, certain breath would thunder behind you. The forest opened without warning. A clearing breathed around a wide river, its water clear as glass, flowing slow and calm like it had never known violence. Wolves stood along the bank, dark shapes reflected in silver light. They were not snarling. They were playing. One stepped forward. Black as night. Bigger than the rest. You froze. The wolf studied you, golden eyes steady, ancient. Then bones shifted, fur melted away, and a man stood where the beast had been. Tall, scarred, wrapped in quiet authority. “My name is Rivan,” he said gently. “You are safe.” He lifted you with care and carried you to a cave hidden beneath stone and roots. The pack watched in silence as a healer cleaned your wound. Rivan stayed near, unmoving. His parents arrived last. Their eyes were cold, they disdained humans. Humns brought fire. Humans brought guns. Even those who never pulled a trigger carried the stain. Rivan stood between you and them anyway. And the forest listened.

Marriage was never part of your plans. Science & medicine had been enough. Your life was charts & lab results, whispered hopes inside sterile rooms, your name respected in infertility medicine long before you turned 30. Your mother appeared one afternoon without warning, sitting stiffly in your office, fingers trembling around glossy photos. A handsome man. Impeccable suit. Calm eyes. Your father had already decided. Gregg’s family matched his influence & alliances had been drawn long before your consent was considered. All that remained was your obedience. Resistance had never survived your father’s voice. Gregg was distant, controlled, polite. On your wedding day, when he stood before you to speak, his hands moved instead of his mouth. For a heartbeat you almost smiled thinking it a performance. Then you understood. Silence was his reality. An accident had stolen sound & speech from him as a child. Shock passed quickly. You learned to communicate in writing. He learned your routines. He never demanded intimacy. Never complained when nights ended at hospitals instead of home. He was reserved, kind & painfully alone. Then Trisha was hired. She knew sign language. She knew business. She knew how to make him smile. She became his translator, his presence in meetings, his laughter after long hours. You watched his face soften for her in ways it never had for you. The tie pin appeared one day. Unfamiliar. Personal. His written explanation was brief. A birthday gift from Trisha. You had forgotten the date entirely. Something twisted inside you. Fear or guilt or both. When you confronted Trisha she did not flinch. She reminded you she was his voice, his connection to the world far more than an assistant. You walked away knowing something was slipping through your fingers. That night you promised yourself to fight for what remained of your marriage. You did not know Gregg had already begun to hear again. And that he was learning how to speak.

This was never the job you dreamed about but it paid the rent & kept your life from collapsing. A year ago you were a college graduate with plans that stretched far beyond survival. Then your mother was placed in an Alzheimer’s facility & the medical bills rose faster than hope. Dreams were postponed. Stability became everything. Now you ran the cafeteria of Tyler’s company, the same building where glass offices overlooked stainless steel counters. You arrived before sunrise, brewed coffee for executives who never learned your name, cooked simple meals, poured drinks at corporate events, cleaned long after everyone left. Waitress. Bartender. Cook. Day after day under fluorescent lights, earning just enough to keep going. When an unexpected medical bill arrived, fear pushed you past caution. You asked for your salary in advance. Tyler’s finance department refused. His assistant told you to return the next day. You could not wait. After hours, when the floor fell silent, you entered Tyler’s office. Your pulse thundered as you searched drawers, files, personal things, looking only for his personal phone number. Instead you found a photograph. Tyler stood beside a young woman who looked exactly like you. Same face. Same expression. Their fingers were intertwined. Behind it was a wedding photo. Your breath caught. You took the picture & left. The next day you showed it to Tomas, the clerk who had worked there for 30 years, hired by Tyler’s father Eddy. He scolded you for snooping, then told you the truth. The woman was Tyler’s wife. She died years ago. Tyler kept his life private. Few had ever seen her. The only difference with you was her red hair. You had never been anyone’s twin. There was no explanation. Then Eddy approached you with an idea. He wanted to give his son a reason to live again. You needed money to save your mother. Together you built a story detailed enough to survive scrutiny. You became the woman in the photo. You returned from the grave.

This was never the job you dreamed about but it paid the rent & kept your life from collapsing. A year ago you were a college graduate with plans that stretched far beyond survival. Then your mother was placed in an Alzheimer’s facility & the medical bills rose faster than hope. Dreams were postponed. Stability became everything. Now you ran the cafeteria of Tyler’s company, the same building where glass offices overlooked stainless steel counters. You arrived before sunrise, brewed coffee for executives who never learned your name, cooked simple meals, poured drinks at corporate events, cleaned long after everyone left. Waitress. Bartender. Cook. Day after day under fluorescent lights, earning just enough to keep going. When an unexpected medical bill arrived, fear pushed you past caution. You asked for your salary in advance. Tyler’s finance department refused. His assistant told you to return the next day. You could not wait. After hours, when the floor fell silent, you entered Tyler’s office. Your pulse thundered as you searched drawers, files, personal things, looking only for his personal phone number. Instead you found a photograph. Tyler stood beside a young woman who looked exactly like you. Same face. Same expression. Their fingers were intertwined. Behind it was a wedding photo. Your breath caught. You took the picture & left. The next day you showed it to Tomas, the clerk who had worked there for 30 years, hired by Tyler’s father Eddy. He scolded you for snooping, then told you the truth. The woman was Tyler’s wife. She died years ago. Tyler kept his life private. Few had ever seen her. The only difference with you was her red hair. You had never been anyone’s twin. There was no explanation. Then Eddy approached you with an idea. He wanted to give his son a reason to live again. You needed money to save your mother. Together you built a story detailed enough to survive scrutiny. You became the woman in the photo. You returned from the grave.

Seven years had passed since the economic collapse hollowed out the houses on your street and the vows inside your marriage. Mike lost his job first. You survived on shared savings and your part time work, telling each other that love was stronger than numbers on paper. Some days it was. Other days it felt like standing on a rope over an open fall. Still, every time you leaned too far away, he reached for you. He forgave. He stayed. Then you lost your job. The bills rose like walls. Eviction notices crept in quietly and fear spoke louder than tenderness. His parents took you in, but their kindness was thinly stretched over their own worries. One night an argument burned too long. You signed the divorce papers with shaking hands, left them on the bed, and fled town before morning. It felt like choosing pain that could end over pain that never would. He did not forgive. He promised himself he never would. Neither did you forget. You built new lives, signed new papers, wore new smiles, yet he stayed lodged in your chest like a memory that refused to fade. Three years later you came back. He was no longer yours. Emily had taken your place, the childhood friend who was never supposed to be more. His parents gave you an address and a warning. Mike was different now. He had land, purpose, and plans to marry her. You took a job on his farm anyway. His foreman never asked your last name. Emily saw you first. Rage colored her face. She demanded you leave. You stayed. Now you sit on the porch of the lake cabin, dusk softening the water. Footsteps approach. He looks the same, steadier, untouched by time. He sits on the steps and waits. Love has returned, you say, voice breaking. Love never returns, because it simply stays, he replies, calm as the lake between you.

It started with a swipe. Boring. Inevitable. You messaged him. He told you his name was Elister. From the first line, it was effortless. Every message a spark, a balm to a restless heart. Humor, intellect, kindness, he had it all & somehow, he shared your obsessions, your hobbies, your quiet quirks. Talking to him wasn’t conversation. It was a pulse, a rhythm that threaded through your day, a need you didn’t know you had. Then, as suddenly as he arrived, he vanished. No message, no profile, no trace. The address he gave you led only to an old lady who blinked in confusion, insisting no one lived there. Your smile, the one that bloomed with each notification died & left only tears. You couldn’t let it go. Not from desperation but because what had passed between you had been luminous, undeniable. Ema, your one & only friend, agreed to help. Her hacking but her condition, was brutal honesty: find the truth, then let go. Two weeks of endless screens & code & the answer came. Elister was ordinary. His charm, his knowledge, his humor; it was all borrowed from the internet, crafted into a persona that fit perfectly into your world. He was nothing like his photo, nothing like the man you thought you knew. And that’s why he disappeared. Because when reality threatened to meet imagination, he chose smoke. Not cowardice, not lack of confidence. Fear, the terror of rejection, the impossibility of attachment without heartbreak had made him ghost before you could touch him. And somehow, you understood. Somehow, the ache remained.

Maël was a star beyond your reach. The evening unfolded with deliberate elegance. Dim lights warmed gilded walls while music moved through the hall, low, intimate. Antique musical instruments were displayed behind glass as relics of history. As the guests gathered, the lights shifted & a ballet took shape precise & restrained, its final movement melting into the sound of a full orchestra. You were never meant to be there. You entered first as kitchen staff. Later, in a borrowed dress you stepped into the crowd, holding your breath every time security passed too close. All of this for Maël. Your obsession since youth. He had always been untouchable. Few friends, endless attention & a cruelty wrapped in wit. Girls admired him. He rarely kept them. His family estate lay in the woods, isolated & guarded. You had tried to reach it once, twice, more. Each attempt ended in humiliation. You confessed your feelings years ago. He answered with amused irony & a smile that dismissed you completely. That was Maël. Tonight, he stood immaculate in a tailored suit, a crimson shirt glowing against his skin. Beside him stood a woman radiant. Jealousy tightened your chest. You took a step forward. He took the stage instead. With polished calm, he announced his engagement, presenting Leyla as his future wife. Something inside you broke cleanly. No drama. No denial. Just the sharp understanding that it was over. You left as security shouted, their voices echoing behind you. You did not slow down. Later, desperation hardened into resolve. Still dressed for the gala, you hid in the trunk of Elina’s car & slipped onto his estate. Inside, the house was breathtaking. Precious stones embedded in furniture. Rare artifacts everywhere. Less a home than a private kingdom. You hid behind an armchair when Maël returned, listening as he spoke with his mother, Elina. Then he stopped. He inhaled. His expression changed. And as he caught your human scent, his fangs emerged in the silence.

Be careful who you trust. Some people have more faces than you could ever imagine. Preston is one of them. To the world he is a sweetheart. Soft spoken. Always smiling. The kind of man coworkers defend without being asked. But behind that gentle presence hides a history shaped by constant leaving. Childhood blurred into boxes and borrowed bedrooms. Foster homes that grew tired of pretending to be permanent. Each goodbye taught him the same lesson. Do not stay. Do not depend. Leave first. Adulthood did not heal him. His marriage became a cycle of breaking and repairing, apologies stacked on top of old wounds. Somehow he always returned home. Somehow nothing was ever fixed. On site he was a drywaller everyone wanted. Reliable. Fast. Willing to take extra shifts. You hired the crew to rebuild your grandmother’s house and you wanted progress. When you checked on the work you saw him and your pulse betrayed you. Strong hands. Easy laughter. That smile made promises without speaking. You dated for a week. Long evenings. Shared coffee. The illusion of being chosen. Then silence. No calls. No messages. Your number blocked as if you never existed. The Project Manager shrugged. Preston was only an extra worker. Not on payroll. No address. No records beyond a name and a phone number. You asked for him again. He never returned. A year later you see him in a fast food restaurant. Laughing. Seated beside a cheerful woman who touches his arm like she belongs there. Understanding lands heavily. Married. You hide. You follow. Days later you stand across the street from his house, heart shaking with dread and resolve. When his wife opens the door, you realize the truth. Preston never vanished. He simply changed faces again.

The war had begun long before your blood ran in these lands, and it would outlast you if the gods allowed. History remembered the victories. History forgot the ashes. Olympus called it resolved; mortals called it survival. Ares arrived late to the Council. The doors had already closed, the decrees spoken, the war officially ended. Hephaestus’ hands hung idle over cooled weapons. Zeus’ eyes were wary. Hera’s lips were thin with calculation. Ares laughed. The sound tore marble. He moved forward, striding across the floor like the earth itself obeyed him. He leaned close to Zeus, whispering in a voice older than lightning. The heavens responded with fire, the ground trembling beneath mortal feet. Olympus negotiated, carefully, but fear always tilted the scale. The bargain was cruel: every six months, a pure woman would be an offering to keep the war quiet. Time passed and now you are the offering. The temple waits like a predator. Marble echoes your every step. Your hands shake, but your mind sharpens. You step to the altar, inhaling the cold, tasting the weight of inevitability. Then the air changes. Ares is there. Not behind the doors, not in rumor, but here, all fire, all power, all certainty. His eyes lock on yours, and you feel the crushing weight of the immortal. You kneel, not in submission, but in defiance. “Mercy,” you command, voice clear, unbroken. Not a plea. A demand. He studies you. Amusement flickers, then anger. He chooses you not as an offering, but as his mate. Something that would make Zeus's anger scream. Olympus will erupt with Ares's audacity. A sacrifice is never a mate. But Ares never obeyed rules; not in war, not among gods. You, trembling, alive, will learn that bravado that comes out of fear is nothing compared to the dark desire of a god who takes what he wants.